From the Virgin Australia website: “Reports that Virgin Australia flight VA41 was hijacked en route from Brisbane to Denpasar are completely incorrect. The Boeing 737-800 aircraft landed safely at Denpasar airport at 15.16 local and all 137 passengers and 7 crew have since disembarked. At no point was the safety of the aircraft in question. “There was a disruptive passenger on board and the pilot notified authorities in advance of landing, as per standard operating procedures. The passenger was unarmed and is now in the custody of the Indonesian authorities.” Related Posts Ethiopian Hijacker arrested- Airport closed-All…
Airline News (Friday)
Category Archives for Airline News (Friday).
Ranking US airlines by complaints
US airlines get about 10, 000 complaints a year reported to the US Department of Transport. The number of complaints rose until 2012, when they fell slightly. Last year, 643 million passengers were carried by US airlines, so the number of complaints in that perspective does not seem to me to be that high. Of course few of us take our frustration with an airline to the appropriate authorities, preferring to whine about it ourselves or post our experiences on Facebook! The report “Unfriendly Skies”, an analysis of five years of airline complaints by…
Mexicana Exits (at last)
The privately-operated Mexicana flew from 1921 to 2010 making it one of the oldest airlines in the world. It kept company with Australia’s Qantas, Colombia’s Avianca and KLM of the Netherlands. The airline was grounded before it made its 90th birthday, just months after joining the One World alliance. The grounding stranded passengers in 16 countries and impacted 8,500 employees. Mexico’s Federal Judiciary Council ordered an end to efforts to revive moribund airline through bankruptcy proceedings, saying no credible new investor had expressed interest in the carrier. The decision means an administrator will be appointed…
Spirit most complained about US airline
I have never had the delight of flying Spirit Airlines in the USA. The one time, I turned up for a Spirit flight, they cancelled it! In the mould of Ryanair, Spirit combines low fares and profitability and customer complaints. Over the last five years, Spirit has consistently received three times more complaints than any other airline and the number of complaints against the airline kept rising in that period. In a report compiled by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund based on Department of Transport statistics, Spirit managed to increase its customer complaints from 6.7 per…
Etihad finishes Alitalia Due Diligence
Etihad Airways has reportedly finished a due diligence for a possible 40 percent investment in Alitalia. Maurizio Lupi , the Italian transport minister told parliament on Wednesday that Etihad could present its industrial plan for the troubled Italian carrier to the government by the end of this week. The Middle Eastern airline is apparently considering its options which a month ago its’ Chief Executive James Hogan said could swing either way. Etihad has said it will invest in the Italian carrier only if it fits in its network and if Alitalia has a credible plan to return to profit.…
3 New Airlines Joining One World
My favourite alliance oneworld (named best airline alliance of 2013) are in the process of adding three airlines to its stable of airlines. This addition of these new members is reportedly the biggest expansion since the program began.The three new carriers are: TAM – member from 31st March, 2014 US Airways – member from 31st March, 2014 Sri Lankan- member from 1st May 2014 TAM (JJ) Hubs: São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Founded: 1976 Fleet: 172 Destinations: 61 destinations in 16 countries Skytrax Rating: 3 star airline. Skytrax Passenger Rating: 42% In 2012, Brazil’s TAM merged with Chile’s LAN. One…
Qantas Freq Flyer “Re-Graded”
Qantas Airways have announced some significant changes to their ten million member Frequent Flyer program to take effect 1 July, 2014. Like many other airlines in the world, Qantas will give more points to those who spend more money. Domestic Points Earning Rates Change On Australian domestic flights, points will be awarded at different rates depending on whether a flight is: Discount Economy Flexible Economy Business Flexible Business. The losers: those flying discount economy short haul fares within Australia e.g. Sydney to Melbourne, Sydney to Canberra and Canberra to Melbourne. From July 1st, the guaranteed minimum number of points a passenger…
go! Airlines Goes
“On behalf of Mesa Air Group, I would like to thank all of our many loyal passengers and the continued hard work and dedication of our employees ” Jonathan Ornstein, CEO I have been lucky to get to Hawaii six times now. When I went there in 2007, the local airline market had been shaken up by the arrival of Phoenix-based Mesa Air Group who were trading as go! Their arrival resulted in a fare war, intense battling, legal action and very personal attacks. go! launched into the Hawaii market in June 2006 with $19 inter-island…
MH370 Renumbered
From March 14, Malaysia Airlines will be renumbering its Kuala Lumpur to -Beijing flight. The new number will be MH318 which replaces MH370. The return MH371 flight becomes MH319. Info from airline route.
Scoot crams 375 people into 787
Singapore Airlines subsidiary Scoot two weeks ago announced that their 787-9 will have a whopping 375 passengers aboard. This number of seats is a far cry from Boeing’s promise of roomy flights with passengers sitting 2-4-2. Budget airline Jetstar has gone with 335 seats on their 787-8s and Norwegian has 291 seats on theirs. The budget carrier will receive the first of their twenty 787s in November. The plane will replace their six Boeing 777-200s which were originally flown by Singapore Airlines. The plane will initially fly from Singapore to Australia, Japan and Taiwan. The airline has orders for ten 787-8s and ten 787-9s. Eight…
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